1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus such as an ink jet type printer.
2. Related Art
Generally, an ink jet type printer (hereinafter, it is referred to as a “printer”) is well known as a liquid ejecting apparatus for ejecting liquid toward a target (for example, JP-A-2007-253613). The printer disclosed in JP-A-2007-253613 includes an air blowing device provided on a side of a head section on which an ink jet head (liquid ejecting head) for ejecting ink (liquid) toward a printing medium (target) is mounted. The air blowing device is attached to the rear side of the head section relative to a traveling direction of the head section at the time of printing. The air blowing device is provided with guide walls including curved surfaces for bending the air jetted from the air nozzle at right angle and parallel surfaces for generating airflow horizontal to the printing plane. By adopting such a configuration, the air blowing device is adapted to generate the horizontal airflow flowing in a direction of increasing a distance from the head section adjacent thereto. In addition, the head section ejects ink toward the target from the ink jet head while performing a reciprocating motion. The air blowing device dries the ink ejected on the target by generating the horizontal airflow.
When the ink on the target is dried, a solvent of the ink evaporates, and thus a vapor pressure on the target surface as the evaporation front is approximated to a saturated vapor pressure. A vapor pressure gradient from the saturated vapor pressure to a vapor pressure of outside ambient air which is not saturated is formed in a still air layer (diffusion layer) in which air neighboring the evaporation front is still. In JP-A-2007-253613, the thickness of the diffusion layer is reduced by blowing air to the evaporation front of the target surface, and thus the vapor pressure gradient is increased to thereby accelerate evaporation of the ink solvent.
However, in the printer disclosed in JP-A-2007-253613, the horizontal airflow generated by the air blowing device is gradually diffused as it moves farther from the guide walls. For this reason, the time period of exposing the diffusion layer of the target surface to the horizontal airflow having an air speed required to reduce the thickness of the diffusion layer is shortened. This causes a problem in that it is hard to obtain a sufficient evaporation accelerating effect. Furthermore, substantially the same problem arises in not only the ink jet type printers but also in liquid ejecting apparatuses for accelerating drying of the target by blowing air.